Table 1

Summary of interview guide topics

Study participantTopics of discussion
Mothers
  • Antenatal care and nutritional support received during most recent pregnancy

  • Types of food consumed while pregnant

  • Household food security

  • Access to safe and nutritionally adequate foods

  • Health education received during and after pregnancy

  • Experiences of breast feeding and complementary feeding since delivery

  • Reasons for or against breast feeding

  • Personal and family perceptions of breast feeding and its relation to child’s health

  • Daily jobs and social obligations and their relation to child’s nutritional status

  • Challenges to adhering to recommended infant and young child feeding practices in postnatal period

  • Reasons for or against seeking formal medical care for acute malnutrition

Health workers
  • Inpatient, outpatient and community-based services available to malnourished children

  • Quality and outcomes of malnutrition care and follow-up

  • Admission and discharge criteria for severe and moderate acute malnutrition

  • Counselling of mothers on breast feeding and other infant and young child feeding practices

  • Parents’ perceptions of and reactions to malnutrition

  • Reasons for or against seeking formal medical care for acute malnutrition

  • Drivers of child malnutrition in Maryland County

  • Barriers to reducing paediatric malnutrition in Liberia

  • Recommended solutions